Tag Archives: Internet

MBUG May General MeetingWEDNESDAY, May 11, 2016 – 7:00 to 9:00 pmHilltop Park Center871 Jessie Street, MontereyFREE to MBUG Members and the General Public

Jeffrey Fisher, a volunteer instructor in the Computer Technology Center at The Carmel Foundation, returns at our May general meeting to continue the discussion of iPad features.

This second iPad session will be more about personalizing your iPad, including creating your own icons, working with Siri, and playing with folders. He will present more iPad tips and tricks (via the App Store) and using Google Search. As always, Fisher welcomes your questions to drive a great deal of what we cover.

Be sure to bring your iPad to the meeting, if you have one, and follow along as we explore.

Fisher was a math major at San Diego State University and spent six years at Burroughs as a programmer and systems engineer. He also has thirty-one years at Hewlett-Packard as a field software/systems rep, did pre/post-sales support, acted as a project manager for his clients’ larger projects, and wrote Linux classes for internal training of HP’ers and customers. He was Tech Support Manager for six years at HP SoCal regional offices, finally retiring six years ago.

For questions in advance, contact Fisher at jeffreyfisher59@gmail.com. For a summary of Beyond iPad Basics, Part 1, see Joe Asling’s Meeting Notes article on page 6 of the MBUG May Newsletter.

MBUG December General MeetingWEDNESDAY, December 9, 2015 – 7:00 to 9:00 pmHilltop Park Center871 Jessie Street, MontereyFREE to MBUG Members and the General Public

For our December general meeting, we will be back at Hilltop Park Center for our Holiday Get-Together, a combination of informal discussion, sharing of favorite websites, and party time and door prizes.

Out-going president Joe Asling will start things off with a presentation on podcasts, reviewing what’s out there and some of the interesting things you can learn through podcasts.

In-coming president Jeff Helms will provide an update on “Best of the Year” technology, highlighting devices such as the new Amazon Echo and video fobs.

Any attendee is welcome to chime in and comment on his or her website of special interest. This is also an opportunity for informal Q & A on computer-related questions.

And don’t forget . . . we will want to hear your QUESTIONS for THE ANSWERS given on page 3 of the December MBUG Newsletter! Hint: Information for formulating some of the questions appears throughout the Newsletter.

Bring a family member, bring a friend—come and join in the sharing! For information, contact C. Lake at lakelyn@comcast.net.

MBUG November General MeetingWEDNESDAY, November 11, 2015 – 7:00 to 9:00 pmCanterbury Room, Canterbury Woods651 Sinex Avenue, Pacific GroveFREE to MBUG Members and the General Public

Are PCs becoming obsolete? Many people find they are using their smartphones almost exclusively for many tasks previously done on their PCs. A recent report from Kleiner Perkins (venture capitalist in Menlo Park who invests in information technologies) shows that smartphones now exceed PCs for everyday Internet usage.

Smartphones allow you to do almost everything a PC can do—and they can make calls as well. Are smartphones replacing tablets? Will smart phones themselves be replaced in the next revolution of computer development? At the November meeting, MBUG Board member Norma Dunipace will discuss these issues and present some survey results on how people today are using their PCs and their smart phones.

The presentation will include how computers have evolved and some statistics about where we are today. What do current users expect from their computers/Internet devices? Are personality traits of the next generation partially driving the development? What do the experts such as Walt Mossberg think? Is there technology available that allows us to turn our smartphones into mini PCs and use them for productivity work?

Norma Dunipace retired in 2007 as Manager of Technology Licensing and Industry Sponsored Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Her computer use includes a desktop, a couple of laptops, an iPad, and an iPhone, and she writes “I am not a computer expert, but I need them to do the things that interest me. I find I am doing more and more on my phone simply because it is convenient.”

Looking to the future, Dunipace notes that although membership in MBUG is still strong, it has been declining and aging in recent years and that Club Mac of Monterey has ceased to operate; she asks, “Should we broaden our interests?” This promises to be an interesting discussion that has implications for MBUG’s direction in the coming year. Come join us!

MBUG October General MeetingWEDNESDAY, October 14, 2015 – 7:00 to 9:00 pmHilltop Park Center871 Jessie Street, MontereyFREE to MBUG Members and the General Public

Again we will be trying something different for our October general meeting: a mixture of viewing Internet video clips about Windows 10 along with commentary and audience discussion. Clips will be selected from a menu of offerings from YouTube, APCUG Virtual Conferences, and TED, as well as audience suggestions. This will also be an opportunity to review and discuss some of the many news items and announcements that have been on the Internet regarding Windows 10 installation, pricing options, and privacy and security issues. MBUG Board member Star Reierson will moderate the discussion. Come join in, ask your questions, and also contribute your answers. If you have questions in advance, contact Star at star@computerpowerstar.com.

MBUG June General MeetingWEDNESDAY June 10, 2015 – 7:00 to 9:00 pmHilltop Park Center871 Jessie Street, MontereyFREE to MBUG Members and the General Public

At our June meeting, we are trying a different approach: first, we are trying out the “virtual speaker” concept, and second, YOU, the audience, get to decide on the content on the spot! To narrow it down, we have pre-selected a number of online videos to choose from, and they fall into two groups.

From one group, we can review some of the topics covered by the recent APCUG Virtual Technology Conferences (APCUG stands for Association of Personal Computer Users Groups, of which MBUG is a member). We can choose a presentation about Windows 10, or different backup technologies (by a salesman for Acronis), or a comparison of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

AND/OR, from the second group, we can google “the most popular TED talks of all time.” TED talks have the advantage of being under 20 minutes and deal with Technology, Entertainment, or Design. Some of the ones I’ve heard have been truly inspirational—from people like Sam Berns, who has a rare disease called progeria but chooses to live a happy life, or Nick Vyicic, an Australian, who was born without arms or legs and tried to commit suicide at the age of eight and now inspires others as a motivational speaker. Ken Robinson talks about “How Schools Kill Creativity.” Jill Bolte Taylor describes her life as a person who studied how brains work and then describes, in detail, her experience of having a stroke. David Gallo introduces us to “Underwater Astonishments.”

MBUG April General MeetingWEDNESDAY April 8, 2015 – 7:00 to 9:00 pmHilltop Park Center871 Jessie Street, MontereyFREE to MBUG Members and the General Public

Our April speaker is Emmanuel Rico Horca, business advisor for the Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC). We all recognize the Internet has become a primary channel for distribution of information by businesses, organizations, schools, institutions, bloggers, musicians, politicians, and more. And each entity sets up a website to interface with its audience and get the message across. Among all these various users, non-profit organizations (NPOs) face some special challenges and increasingly rely on their websites for communication, recruitment, fundraising, publicity, and other client services.

Emmanuel Rico Horca specializes in helping groups and businesses maximize the potential of their websites to realize their objectives and will share with us many valuable strategies, including some basic tune-up tips, how to get visible, how to get listed, how to get found, how to get reviewed, and how to get seen. He enjoys helping clients set up business systems and processes that keep their companies on track and moving forward.

Horca, an adjunct faculty member in the College of Business at CSUMB, has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Santa Clara University and an MBA from Golden Gate University. He has more than ten years hands-on experience in business communications, search engine optimization (SEO), content management (for websites), marketing, and operations management

Prior to joining the SBDC, Horca was senior editor and web content manager for several technology firms in Silicon Valley, including Intuit and RingCentral, where he was responsible for website content and management and recruited and trained an overseas information development team. During five years at CTB/McGraw-Hill in Monterey, he was manager of editing services.

This presentation will be of special interest to all those involved in non-profit organizations or small businesses. For questions in advance and more information, contact Horca at ehorca@csumb.edu.

MBUG January General MeetingWEDNESDAY January 14, 2014 – 7:00 to 9:00 pmHilltop Park Center871 Jessie Street, MontereyFREE to MBUG Members and the General Public

No longer content with waiting in (yes) waiting rooms for a doctor who may be part of a practice and may be someone you haven’t met before? No longer reminiscing with your family doctor, hearing about when you were born or stories about the delivery of your children or the mending of that broken arm earned “with honor” on the neighborhood playground?

No, that scenario has changed; we want our information without the wait— it has to be NOW. We need to know now: in line at the supermarket, in traffic (oh, no, of course as a passenger in the car) or during a commercial while watching television. What is that rash? That stomach ache? That new pain?

So, who do we ask—Dr. Google, I presume.

In a time and world of technology birth and rebirth, happening every millisecond it seems, we seek information, and most of us ask Google. And what do we get? To help the avid consumer of health information find the best paths to reliable and meaningful information, Cynthia F. Johnson, M.S., will present some tips and tricks of the trade at our January 14 General Meeting.

Cynthia is Medical Librarian at the Allen Santell Memorial Medical Library, Natividad Medical Center, in Salinas. For more information about the meeting or to submit questions in advance, contact Carolyn Lake at lakelyn@comcast.net.